Stephen Lacey is a contributing editor with Greentech Media. He is also the founder and executive producer of Post Script Media. Lacey produces and hosts The Energy Gang and Interchange podcasts, two of the most popular podcasts on energy and cleantech.

You wouldn't expect a museum dedicated to the coal industry to run on anything other than coal -- but a mining museum in Kentucky is soon to be solar powered.

The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, owned by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, is switching to solar power to save money. The museum, which memorializes Kentucky's history in coal mining, is modernizing with a new form of cheaper energy.

Communications director Brandon Robinson told CNN affiliate WYMT that the project "will help save at least $8,000 to $10,000 off the energy costs on this building alone."

The Trump administration is so alarmed that Chinese investors may try to purchase Westinghouse Electric Co.’s nuclear business that U.S. officials are trying to find an American or allied buyer for the company instead, two people familiar with the matter said.

Cabinet members including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have discussed preventing Westinghouse’s purchase by a Chinese-linked company, three U.S. officials said.

For years, Chinese entities have been interested in the nuclear reactor builder, and the company has been a repeated target of Chinese espionage. Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 29 and its parent company Toshiba Corp. is seeking a buyer for its money-losing reactor business.

Hyperloop One, the high-speed transportation project involving pods full of people being shot through air tubes, listed 11 potential U.S. routes. The project's organizers also said its 1,640-foot-long DevLoop testing facility was completed near Las Vegas this week. Hyperloop One has promoted itself as a transportation alternative that can ferry passengers and cargo at "airline speeds."

Of the 11 proposed routes, the shortest is a 64-mile route from Boston to Providence, while the longest would span the 1,152 miles between Cheyenne and Houston. Other routes would link Los Angeles to San Diego, Reno to Las Vegas, and Miami to Orlando.

The increasingly powerful impact that large commercial and industrial companies are beginning to have on energy policy, at least at the state level, was made evident April 3 in Ohio.

Speaking at an event celebrating the newly opened Amazon fulfillment center in the state, Gov. John Kasich reportedly took an opportunity to lambaste the recent Ohio House vote approving a bill that aims to remove the state's renewable energy and energy efficiency standards. The bill, HB 114, passed March 30 in the House and moves to the Senate.

The Statehouse News Bureau reported that just prior to the governor's tour of the facility, Amazon's Paul Misener talked about the online retail giant's goal of getting 100% of its energy for its Ohio cloud computing operation from renewable sources. Kasich, whose administration had a hand in Amazon’s decision to locate the facility just outside Columbus, apparently addressed his comment to Ohio Sen. Jay Hottinger, who was in attendance.

UCS: What Is EPA’s Vehicle Lab, and Why Should I Care How It’s Funded?

More details have been released about the Trump administration’s plans to cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In particular, it is nearly zeroing out the budget for the vehicles program, calling for the National Vehicle and Fuels Emission Laboratory (“Vehicle Lab”) in particular to be funded almost entirely by fees imposed on the industry “as quickly as possible." This could significantly undermine the enforcement of safeguards which protect American pocketbooks and public health from industry malfeasance, and it could put in jeopardy technical research that moves technology forward.